panaderia029_bw.jpg Jennifer Perez and her father Jaime, center, get the giggles as they wait in line with their bakery goods at Dominguez bakery.
Dominguez bakery on 24th Street in the Mission district has been open for about 30 years on Sundays only...they become especially busy right after St. Peters Catholic Church finishes mass right across the street. BRANT WARD / The Chronicle

Photo: BRANT WARD

panaderia029_bw.jpg Jennifer Perez and her father Jaime, center,...

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La Victoria bakery at 2937 24th street in the Mission district. Photo of Alvaro Moreno (left) pushing out a tray of bakery goods for delivery. Event on 4/21/04 in San Francisco. Craig Lee / The Chronicle

Photo: Craig Lee

La Victoria bakery at 2937 24th street in the Mission district....

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Salvadoran pastries and breads from Pan Lido bakery. Event on 4/26/04 in San Francisco. Craig Lee / The Chronicle

Photo: Craig Lee

Salvadoran pastries and breads from Pan Lido bakery. Event on...

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panaderia027_bw.jpg Carmen Dominguez, owner and daughter of the founders, makes churros Sunday morning at her bakery.
Dominguez bakery on 24th Street in the Mission district has been open for about 30 years on Sundays only...they become especially busy right after St. Peters Catholic Church finishes mass right across the street. BRANT WARD / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: BRANT WARD

panaderia027_bw.jpg Carmen Dominguez, owner and daughter of the...

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Pan Lido bakery at 3147 22nd street in the Mission district. Photo of Flor America (right) with a tray of bakery goods, Mauricio Montes is at the left.
Event on 4/21/04 in San Francisco. Craig Lee / The Chronicle

Just shy of 6 on a Friday morning, 24th Street in San Francisco's Mission District is empty. That is, until you reach York Street, where La Mexicana Bakery has been packed since 4:30 a.m. Inside, Estella Valle hustles to refill coffee pots and keep vintage wooden cabinets full of fresh baked sweet breads for the men in work boots who stream into the shop.

"Construction workers, drivers, everybody comes here," says roofer Victor Hernandez, leaning on the bakery's window ledge and sipping coffee with a friend before heading off to work. Hernandez has no time to make breakfast at his house, where his wife and three children are still asleep. "To be waking up the whole family doesn't make sense," he says. "We just come down here and fill up."

They could hit a fast-food restaurant or 24-hour donut shop, but La Mexicana offers more than pastry. For Hernandez, who is from the state of Puebla, it's a taste of home. Although panaderias, or Latino bakeries, dot the Bay Area, a handful of Mexican and Salvadoran panaderias in the Mission -- La Mexicana, La Victoria, Dominguez and Pan Lido -- have become cultural institutions, renowned for generations for their high-quality breads. Many Mission residents visit their favorite panaderia at least once a day, while people living farther away might come weekly to stock up on bread and pastry.

Panaderias make a number of rolls based on the French baguette -- such as the crusty tapered oval bolillo of Mexico -- that are either eaten plain with coffee, turned into a sandwich or used as a substitute for tortillas to accompany savory foods. Pan dulce, or sweet yeasted bread or pastry, come in countless sizes, colors and flavors to eat with coffee, milk or hot chocolate.

"People grew up with those flavors. It's a part of their palate; it's a part of their diet," says Carlos Cordova, professor of La Raza Studies at San Francisco State University and a Mission District resident. "It's also a social thing. People know you (at the panaderia), they know what you like. It's good quality, so you go."

Not everyone succumbs to the allure of pan dulce, which can be a little dry for some palates. Though many pan dulce resemble French pastry and American Danishes, their flavor and texture are often different because they are made with shortening, margarine or lard instead of butter.

But even those who are used to more buttery pastries can find a lot to love in the Mission's best panaderias: Dominguez' colorful cookies and delicious cinnamon-dusted churros (on Sunday mornings); La Victoria's cafe con leche and thick-crusted bolillos; and Pan Lido's Salvadoran pasteles (fruit- and meat-filled pockets), with their light and flaky crust. La Mexicana creates delicate custard-filled pastries and animal-shaped rolls.

Panaderias have so many different breads and pastries that customers often don't know the names of their favorites. Shoppers pick up a tray and tongs, then make their selection, regularly spending $8-$10 on rolls that start around 50 cents apiece.

Bi-weekly visits

Felipe Sandoval, who co-owns and manages Maya restaurant in San Francisco, goes to either La Victoria or Dominguez Bakery at least twice a week, even though his family lives in the Richmond District.

"My son gets mad if I don't go," says Sandoval, who grew up in Mexico City and Acapulco. "(The breads) are always around the house."

Both Sandoval and his 10-year-old son, Sebastian, prefer conchas, airy, lightly sweet rolls with a sugary shell pattern, which they tear into small pieces and dunk in milk before bedtime.

Although corn was the staple grain in Latin America, Spanish missionaries introduced wheat and European baking techniques, eventually leading to hundreds of creations, from Mexico's ubiquitous concha to celebratory breads like pan de muerto, made for the Day of the Dead. Today, bakeries range from rustic shops in small towns to huge baroque panaderias in Mexico City's Distrito Federal.

Bay Area baking authority Beth Hensperger became fascinated with these breads in her 20s, when she traveled frequently to Mexico.

"In Cabo San Lucas this one bakery was almost in a cellar with a wood- burning oven," says Hensperger. "I got mesmerized in there. They had these metal racks and the guys were just working there. There was no separation between where the customers were and the bakers."

Hensperger eventually collected some of the recipes for her book, "Breads of the Southwest: Recipes in the Native American, Spanish and Mexican Traditions" (Chronicle Books, 1998). Although there are panaderias near where she lives in Mountain View, Hensperger prefers to drive to the Mission for pan dulce.

Fans say the Mission's best panaderias compare favorably to bakeries in Mexico and El Salvador, although most agree the bolillos here just aren't the same. But the quality and style vary from panaderia to panaderia.

"To get the yellow color into bread you need to use eggs," says Jose Simeon Cañas, who runs Cañas Market at Valencia and 26th streets. "But (some) people put coloring in it and it doesn't taste as good." Cañas opts to carry Pan Lido's Salvadoran breads, which always sell out.

Bakery owners say their clientele is a mix of people from all over Latin America, some Asians and Anglos, including recent European immigrants. Employee Fredy Montes says the customer base is half Salvadoran at the Mexican bakery Dominguez, which was opened by Jalisco natives Concepcion and Sebastian Dominguez in 1965. Now the shop is run by their daughter, Carmen, and her grown children.

Salvadoran bakery Pan Lido, run by the father-and-son team of Walter Varela Sr. and Jr., claims a lot of Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans and Costa Ricans as customers. Like the Mexican panaderias, Pan Lido sells French rolls; everything else, however, is different. Small round pasteles, with flaky dough and fruit or meat fillings, take the place of the larger, triangular Mexican empanadas, which have a softer crust. Semita poleada is similar to coffee cake, with a layer of marmalade and a topping of brown sugar. Quesadilla is a rich bread made with cheese, sour cream, rice flour and eggs.

Jaime Maldonado owns the Mexican bakery La Victoria, which his father, Gabriel, opened in 1951. Maldonado, who has been baking since he was tall enough to reach the work table, says the Latino population in the Mission has gotten smaller, with fewer families, which hurts his business. He also faces competition from less-expensive bakeries that he says use inferior ingredients and techniques, such as substituting powdered milk for whole milk.

Pride of product

"Each bread should have its own dough. A lot of bakeries use the same dough for all the bread," laments Maldonado. At La Victoria, bakers still make up to 80 or 90 different doughs, but Maldonado says that the rising cost of oil, sugar, eggs and dairy has made it diffi0lt to keep his prices to 50 cents to $1.25 per piece.

"People can go to Mission Street and get normal pan dulce for three for a dollar," says Maldonado. "They say they want to fill their kids' stomachs. They don't worry about quality."

But plenty of people still seem to care about the quality breads that are hand-crafted in the Mission's best panaderias. Cecilia Lopez lives near downtown and visits La Mexicana Bakery on her day off. When her teenage boys were babies and the family lived around the corner on York Street, they came every day. That doesn't surprise Estella Valle, who has been selling breads at La Mexicana since it opened 32 years ago.

"We have people coming in from everywhere -- Hayward, Walnut Creek, all over -- and (they) bring in their children to show them where they used to come when they were kids," says Valle. "They're always surprised that I'm still here, but they're happy that the quality is still the same and that things haven't changed.".

galleta: Generally means cookies or crackers; panaderias usually carry several types of sweet galletas, some in bright pink or covered with sprinkles

oreja: "Ear" pastries very similar to the flaky French palmier

pan de muerto: This celebratory "bread of the dead" fills panaderias during All Saints and All Souls days, or Day of the Dead. The round egg breads with an anise and orange flavor are often decorated with small bones and skulls to commemorate loved ones who have died

puerquito or cochinito: These soft molasses cookies are shaped like pigs

rosca de reyes: Made for Epiphany (Jan. 6), this bread has a similar dough to pan de muerto, but is formed into a ring and decorated with candied fruit. A small doll is embedded inside; the recipient has to host a party on the Feast of the Candelaria, Feb. 2

telera: Flatter and softer then a bolillo, this roll is the best choice for sandwiches

INSTRUCTIONS:

Grill the rolls cut-side down over low heat until marked, then set aside.

Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the onion and saute for about 6 minutes, until lightly browned.

Season the meat slices with salt and pepper and place on the grill. Grill for about 3 minutes, turning once, until cooked through.

Place the grilled rolls face-up on a baking sheet. Spread the bean puree and the guacamole on each roll and distribute the cheeses among the rolls. Place under the broiler until the cheese melts, about 2 minutes.

These piglet molasses cookies are a classic at the Mexican panaderia. The recipe comes from Chronicle South to North columnist Jacqueline Higuera McMahan's book "Rancho Cooking" (Sasquatch Books, 2001). These cookies will keep for 2 weeks stored in an air-tight tin at room temperature.

INGREDIENTS:

8 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 tablespoons strong brewed coffee

3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 cup molasses

1 egg beaten with 2 teaspoons water, for glaze

INSTRUCTIONS:

Beat the butter in a mixing bowl until fluffy, adding the brown sugar, egg, vanilla and coffee. The finished mixture will look curdled.

Stir together the flour, salt, ginger and cinnamon until well blended. Stir the baking soda into the molasses, which will become foamy. This gives the cookies their distinctive texture.

Using an electric mixer, beat the molasses into the sugar mixture. Add the flour mixture, 1 cup at a time, until the dough is well blended. Divide dough in half, flatten into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours to make the dough easier to handle.

Thirty minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 375°.

Roll out a portion of the dough to 1/2-inch thickness on a floured surface. Cut into piglets or use any large animal cutter, at least 4 x 3 1/2 inches. Remove dough scraps and chill before rerolling.

Carefully place the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with egg glaze. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not over-bake as the cookies are meant to be soft. Cool on racks.